Scrapbook 1: Jan 1962 — Ranger 3, John Glenn

CLOSE-UP PICTURES

Objects 15ft Long

An hour before impact a radio command will point the axis of the television camera at the Moon. At 40 minutes before impact, when Ranger III should be about 2,500 miles above the lunar surface, the television camera will start taking a series of 100 pictures, the first close-up view of the Moon’s surface.

The first pictures should include an area of about 25 miles square while the last should cover an area of only 1,000ft square and might show objects only 12ft long.

Eight seconds before the impact, when Ranger III is 70,000ft from the Moon, the landing capsule will be separated from the spacecraft.

The television camera and the spectrometer which measure the radio-activity will be destroyed on landing on the Moon. The capsule containing the other instruments should descend relatively slowly on to the Moon.

The impact speed will be about 150 m.p.h. The instruments are packed in a sphere surrounded by heavy oil with the same density as the sphere itself. The outer sphere is encased in a balsa wood container, surrounded by a glass fibre shell.

MOON-SHOT

DOCUMENTARY SKETCH BY CHARLES MACHARDY

RANGER 3

RANGER III soared 150 miles up and went into orbit. Then booster rockets sent the spacecraft hurtling on its 66-hour journey to the moon.

America’s rocket Ranger III speeds on its way to take close-up photographs of the moon — a journey of about 60 hours (this page). It seemed to be a perfect launching and a good omen for spaceman John Glenn, who waits to be fired into orbit today. Last night he gave a message to the world

SPACEMAN IS ALL SET

From RONALD BEDFORD Cape Canaveral, Florida, Sunday

THE outlook is bright for America’s bid to send a Spaceman three times round the world on Wednesday.

After gloomy, overcast skies, the sun shone brilliantly here today. And the weathermen say the forecast is good.

The astronaut chosen for the three-orbit trip, Marine Colonel John Glenn, 40, is in perfect shape, physically and mentally.

Today he drove to church, then had a steak and salad lunch with his stand-in Commander Scott Carpenter, 37.

Nurses

America’s first man in Space, Commander Alan Shepard, 39, was also at the lunch. He is technical adviser to the Space-shot team.

Two pretty nurses will keep a round-the-clock watch on Glenn’s health until the early-morning blast-off from Pad 14.

John Herschel Glenn, fifth and—at 40—oldest of earth’s space riders, is rarin’ to go. After a pre-dawn breakfast of steak and eggs he donned his silvery space suit and walked out to the Atlas rocket which is due to blast him into a triple orbit of the earth this afternoon.

A lift whisked the powerfully built red-haired astronaut up the gigantic gantry to his 4200-lb. capsule and a moment later he was sealed inside.

Open to him now as he waits in his own little world of air is the chance to clinch a triumph for his countrymen as well as taste the thrills of outer space.

As thousands of Americans began praying in hundreds of churches throughout the U.S. and in the waiting rescue ships an official reported: “Everything is go.”

Technicians swarmed over Pad 14 checking and rechecking every inch of the space craft and the capsule christened Friendship Seven.

Loud-speakers tersely bark out the landmarks in this all-embracing check on rocket, spacecraft and escape tower.

15,000 men wait

After five postponements there is a real feeling of go here today. We are thinking deliberately of the successes with Atlas rather than the failures.

Far out across the ocean a £25 million chain of tracking stations and a recovery force made up of 15,000 men and 26 ships is reporting in.

This is the biggest and most costly scientific experiment ever set up by man—draining away £500,000 every day it is kept waiting.

Its justification: to save the life of one man. That man at this moment, we are told, is not unduly anxious.

Near him all the time is his “back up” astronaut Scott Carpenter, 36, whose feelings as he waits in the wings must be very mixed.

Equally content to remain out of the Iimelight are 12 British rocket engineers who have helped in the design of the Friendship Seven.

The facts

On the wooden grandstand around me some 500 journalists, cameramen and newsreel commentators are scrambling the facts out to a world which Glenn should soon have at his feet.

A liberal supply of facts is pouring from the man who has always been go-between for the seven Mercury astronauts and the public—Colonel “Shorty” Powers. A wag has quipped: “How’s superman doin’, Shorty?”

Colonel Powers has been at pains to stress the vital role which Glenn will play in deciding how the Friendship Seven capsule is to be manoeuvred once it gets into space, and how long it should be left in orbit. It may go round twice or thrice. Glenn has the say.

One circle will plunge it back into the sea 500 miles east of Bermuda; the second to the south; and the third will return him south-east of here.

Lunch should be “served” through plastic squeeze tubes at the end of orbit one. The splendid performance of the Atlas booster has given morale a much-needed pep-shot and huge parties are planned all over the Cape tonight.

The toast of the evening is supposed to miss the lot and rest in a hospital—calming down and delivering his precious medical data and verbal reports.

Sleep? Impossible

As for Glenn’s wife, Anna, she is reported to be sensibly asleep in Virginia. I wonder. Sleep for most of us has been impossible here because of the huge publicity operation that had to be mounted, with busloads of reporters disgorging on to the rattler-infested and palmetto-studded Cape.

The American taxpayer has been bled of £180 million for the project which is now reaching its climax—and officials are determined they shall have a complimentary ticket for today’s show, no matter where they are. The nation is being hooked up by TV. Every beautiful or nasty detail is vividly exposed.

Columbus

The man who will decree “Go” for the tough, super-fit but balding Marine, has the very apposite name of Christopher Columbus Kraft.

Mr. Kraft is the flight controller at the hub of things, a huge concrete blockhouse where there are now scenes of tension and brouhaha as all the variable factors in project Mercury—weather, tracking network, rocket, astronaut and recovery force—are “blended” to give a state of countdown.

Right now it looks good, and for the man who complained jokingly of being “just the bridesmaid” when Alan Shepard and Virgil Grissom rode their rockets into space it is nearly time to be the bride.

• The U.S. Ranger moon shot—sent up yesterday and 20,000–30,000 miles off course—was tracked by Jodrell Bank this morning.